Conversion Bureau: Odd One Out
by palpatine213
Summary: Equestria has appeared on Earth. The ponies have offered mankind to become ponies. Some accept, others resist and join the Human Liberation Front. One man has decided to turn, but what happens next will change man and pony kind forever.
1. Chapter 1: Arrival

This is the completely redone chapter 1 of Odd one out. Much better work than my original.

**NOTE: Continuity between old and redone chapters is not preserved!**

This is because I am completely rewriting the story, pretty much down to its core.

There is going to be a LOT more backstory and, hopefully, emotion in the new version.

Unfortunately, this revival will mean that My little Halo will not be updated for a while.

I am working on an experimental story idea over on my Deviantart account, (same username).

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><p>Chapter 1: The Arrival<p>

"Damn it, not again."

I leaned on my car and swore as I listened to the roar of the mob surrounding a large white building.

This was the third Bureau that I had tried and, like the two before it, it was barricaded by an angry mob of humans waving their fists and screaming obscenities.

I knew that choosing to get ponified this late was a bad idea. The Human Liberation Front had recently gained a substantial amount of recruits and political influence. They had almost immediately moved to shut down every Conversion Bureau they could.

I snorted. "Human Liberation Front", what a joke. They claimed to be a political activist group looking out for mankind's best interests. In reality, they were just a fanatical terrorist organization that despised all ponies. What's funny, is that their true nature isn't really a secret. Almost everyone knows the HLF's true intentions, but no one really does anything about it. Why would they? The HLF doesn't harm humans, just ponies. So the government turns a blind eye to any mysterious pony deaths and receives a nice cash transaction from the HLF as a bonus.

Oh, perhaps I should explain what I mean by ponies. These are not your ordinary run of the mill relatives to horses. Heck, we didn't know they existed until their island, called Equestria, popped up off the coast of Manhattan a year ago. For one, they are about waist height. Yup, don't even think about trying to ride one unless you're a kid. Well, ride one as in sit on it.

Secondly, their coat colors vary widely all across the spectrum. Don't be surprised to find an pink pony sitting next to a lime green one.

Finally, there are two things that are the most unbelievable features about them. They come in four races, unicorn, earth pony (a regular looking pony), pegasus, and alicorn. Alicorns are considered gods by the other pony races, and there are currently only two alicorns in existence. These alicorns, Celestia and Luna, rule over Equestria as its princesses. They have magical power far beyond any unicorn's, and can influence the path of the sun and moon across the sky. Yeah, that's right, magic. Don't ask me to explain it, because I can't. Oh, and the last thing, to top it all off, these ponies are sentient and can talk.

When I first saw them appearing on the news, I honestly thought that it was all some big joke. The ponies said they came in peace and offered to transform people into ponies, and let them enter Equestria, which is protected from by an impenetrable magical shield that only ponies can bypass.

These Conversion Bureaus were a huge hit, and millions of people rushed to become ponies. Almost half of the world's population was pony within a few months. Sadly, that was then. Most of the remaining humans are those that despise ponies now and try to stop ponification, as was the case here.

On order to protect the Bureaus from the HLF, the bureaus were outfitted with miniature versions of Equestria's protective shield. These Bureau shields were more advanced, because they possessed the ability to detect whether or not a person was planning to harm the Bureau, and let them in or block them accordingly.

As I turned to go, defeated, I saw a flicker of movement in an upper window of the Bureau. My heart skipped a beat as the implications of this raced through my mind.

Could it be? Is there somepony still in there? All the other Bureaus were abandoned. If there are still ponies inside, then that means that there is still a chance for me.

My suspicions were confirmed as I saw a blue snout momentarily peek out from behind one of the blinds.

There were ponies inside! Now just the small matter of getting through the crowd.

I pondered this for a while, then thought, "Well, they'd let a fellow rioter through, wouldn't they?"

Hiding a small smile, I raised my fist in the air, and slowly moved towards the crowd.

They looked suspicious at first, but once I could hear their shouts well enough to copy them, they accepted me as one of their own.

"Idiots."

I carefully weaved through the crowd, getting closer and closer to the Bureau's protective shield. If I could just get through it, I'd be safe from the crowd, and in the clear to enter the Bureau.

I had reached the very front row of the crowd, and was about to touch the shield, when I was pulled aside by a gruff looking protester.

"Hey! What do you think you're doing?" he asked.

"I'm going to go in there and smash up that damn bureau," I lied.

"Well you aren't going to get in just by walking through the front door," he said, lightly rapping me on the head, "Only ponification subjects can enter." He said "ponification" like it was some bad taste in his mouth.

"See," he said, knocking on the shield which gave a light buzz at his touch, "You try it."

I tried knocking on the shield, and was both surprised and relieved when my hand passed right through it. The shield recognized my true intentions and had decided to let me through.

Unfortunately, the man also realized this.

"Wait a second. you're one of those pony-loving traitors! Get him!"

I dived through the shield, barely managing to avoid getting grabbed by the mob. I could feel their nails scraping my flesh, as the shield forced them off of me.

I crawled away from the edge of the shield, and sat there, watching the crowd bang and claw at the shield, trying to get to me.

After spending a couple minutes trying to force my heart rate and breathing back down to normal levels, I stood up and, began walking towards the Bureau's entrance, trying my best not to show how utterly terrified I was.

That's when I heard the screaming.

A look in its direction revealed the source, a light blue pegasus stallion with a golden mane was flying towards the Bureau. Moments later, I saw the reason for its haste. It was being chased by a surface-to-air missile.

The Pegasus began to execute flips, rolls, and loops in an attempt to lose the missile. None of it was working.

"Come on, you can make it," I whispered. If the Pegasus could just make it through the shield, the shield would destroy the missile.

As the pegasus got closer to the Bureau, it locked its brown eyes with mine and I saw the sheer terror radiating from them. It performed another roll, and I was able to make out exactly what kind of missile was chasing it, causing my hopes to plummet like a rock.

"No!" I cried, as I watched the the missile pick up speed and slam into the pegasus, just inches outside the shield.

The resulting explosion propelled the pegasus's body through the shield, where it landed on the grass and rolled to a stop just in front of my feet.

I heard a horrid cheer emerge from the crowd as I knelt next to the body.

"I'm sorry." I whispered, "You didn't deserve this."

As I moved my hand to close its eyes, I felt a warm gust of air emit from its nostrils.

It was still alive!

I carefully picked it up in a fireman's carry, making doing my best to keep the head in its current position as not to risk blocking off its air passage.

I carried the pegasus towards the Bureau, stopping just outside the entrance.

"It still lives you, you bastards," I yelled back towards the crowd.

The automatic glass doors, which marked the main entrance to the Bureau slid apart as I stepped through, then closed behind me, cutting off the crowd's groans.

I took a deep breath, and looked around.

This was the first time I had actually been _inside_ a Conversion Bureau. I had seen the outside of the two abandoned ones, but I hadn't dared to try to step inside.

What surprised me at first, was how bland it was. I expected the walls to be covered in posters and flyers advertising places in Equestria, or maybe even some propaganda. At least some really colorful wallpaper.

Now seeing it for real, I realized how wrong I really was. The walls were white and completely bland. The reception desk was built into the floor, had a simple wood finish, a phone, a service call bell, and a computer. There were a few cushioned chairs around the room, but that was it.

Suppressing the sense of panic that was growing in the back of my head, I moved over to the desk and hit the call button with my elbow.

A bell chimed from somewhere deep within the Bureau, followed by a female voice.

"Pinkie Pie! Stop messing with the bell, I'm trying to study! Besides, you've already broken it twice."

I raised an eyebrow in surprise, and pressed the bell again.

"Alright, that's it!" the voice yelled, followed by a crash somewhere, "I'm sorry, but that was the last straw in the hay bale."

THe voice began to sound like it was nearer, and I could hear it grumbling under its breath.

A pair of double doors at the end of the room swung open, revealing a purple unicorn mare, with a dark purple mane which had a light purple streak in it, who looked very pissed off.

Upon seeing me holding the pegasus, the anger drained from her face, replaced by shock and confusion. "You're not Pinkie Pie," she said, slightly dumbfounded.

She must have realized how stupid she sounded, because she blushed momentarily.

The pegasus's condition must have taken her a little bit to process, because she stood there for a few more seconds, before bounding up to me, asking what had happened.

I told her about what I had seen, and she told me to wait where I was, before galloping away back through the door which she had come through.

She returned a few minutes later, her horn glowing purple. Behind her, there was a stretcher, encased in the same purple light as her horn, which was following her, seemingly of its own accord.

I was stupefied for a moment, but then remembered that telekinesis is a power that all unicorn ponies possess. I had read about it, but never actually seen pony magic with my own two eyes before.

Come to think about it, I'd never seen a pony in person before today either.

The unicorn's horn, and the stretcher, ceased glowing and I slowly lowered the pegasus down onto the stretcher, finally noticing how light it actually was.

"Okay, let me see what the damage is," the unicorn said, lowering her head so that her horn, was inches above the pegasus's body.

The unicorn's horn started glowing again, and she closed her eyes.

"He has three broken ribs, one of which is puncturing a lung," the unicorn said, still focusing on what she was doing, "The bones in his right wing are completely shattered. There is cranial swelling in the frontal lobe, and it looks like the entire nervous system is in shock."

Extinguishing her horn and looking at me, she said, "It's a good thing you got him here when you did. Had he been lying there for an hour more, he would have died."

"Is he going to be okay?" I asked.

"Lucky won't be flying for a while, if that's what you mean. Honestly I'm just glad that his injuries weren't that severe," she said, wheeling the cart back down the hallway and motioning for me to follow.

"Lucky?"

"Lucky Breeze," the unicorn replied, motioning towards the pegasus, "That's his name."

"Oh."

We continued walking in silence for a few moments.

"You know what," the unicorn said, stopping, "I just realized that I never even told you my name. I'm sorry for being so rude. My name's Twilight Sparkle," she said holding out a hoof.

"I'm Jones," I said, shaking it.

Twilight sparkle, where had I heard that name before?

Suddenly, it clicked.

"Wait a second," I said, "THE Twilight Sparkle? As in Princess Celestia's protegé, Twilight Sparkle?"

"Oh, so you've heard of me." she said, her face turning a deep red.

"Heard of you? Your speech was broadcast live via television to the entire world!"

"The entire world?" she said, looking confused, "But there were so few people... OH! So that's what those floating spheres were for."

We reached another set of double doors which opened into a small room with what looked like an operating table in the middle.

Twilight lifted Lucky onto the table with her magic, and pushed the stretcher off to the side of the room.

"Wouldn't it be better to fold it up?" I asked, eyeing the stretcher warily.

Twilight blinked. "You can do that?"

"Yeah. Here let me help," I said, showing her how to work the latch pin.

Once I had the stretcher folded up, Twilight levitated it into its nook in the wall.

"So, what are we going to do about Lucky's injuries?" I asked.

"I'm going to fix them, silly," replied Twilight, walking over to Lucky.

"You're a surgeon too? Do you need any help?"

"Surgery?" she asked, looking confused.

"Well, obviously Lucky will need surgery. You can't heal punctured lungs with a band-aid and a kiss. I may not have a medical degree, but I still can help."

Twilight stood there for a moment, then broke out in a fit of giggling.

"What's so funny?" I asked.

"You," she replied, "You obviously don't know much about unicorns do you?"

"No, not really," I admitted.

"Unicorns don't cut ponies open to fix what's wrong with them. We use our magic to repair their bodies. Watch."

Twilight's horn lit up and she leaned over Lucky, her face twisting in obvious concentration.

After a few seconds, I heard a creaking sound coming from Lucky, and I saw him beginning to breathe normally.

"There," Twilight said, letting out the breath she had held in, "Do you see now?"

"That's amazing," I said, stunned, "I didn't know ponykind was so much more advanced than us."

"Advanced? Us? Compared to you? Mankind is the advanced one."

"Are you kidding? If what I heard is true, you're one of the ponies who created the ponification serum itself," I replied.

"Well, I only performed the spells necessary on it. Your scientists made the serum itself. Don't forget about all the electrical appliances you introduced us to. We were still running off of steam."

"You give us too much credit. Before your kind arrived, we hadn't even managed anything remotely close to the serum. Your magic is what allowed us to advance our sciences so far."

"But it wa-" The rest of her response was muffled by my hand, which I had put over her snout, holding her mouth shut.

"How about we just say that neither one of us could've created something as advanced as the serum without the other and leave it at that," I said.

Twilight nodded, and I released her snout.

"Sorry about that," I said, "I didn't want to end up in a long argument about something completely unimportant."

"Yeah, it's umm okay," Twilight said, looking very uncomfortable.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

Twilight opened her mouth to reply, then suddenly ran towards a sink in the corner, and began furiously washing her muzzle.

"What the heck? What are you doing?" I asked.

"I'm sorry," she replied, drying her muzzle off, "It's just that you touched my face with your hands and well..."

"So you think that all humans are filthy?" I asked.

"Well, you touch so many things with your hands, and your world has so many poisons and pollutants in it, having my face touched by your hands was, well a little disgusting."

I held my arms out forward, and began to shuffle towards Twilight, imitating a zombie.

"I am the walking plague. Fear me," I moaned.

Twilight let out a squeak, then fell over backwards, laughing.

Seeing her lying like that was too adorable, and I broke out laughing too.

At that moment, the realization hit me. I was talking to this unicorn as if she was another human being. Was I that ready to becoming a pony?

As I pondered this, Twilight finally calmed down enough to roll over and get back on her legs.

"We probably should let Lucky rest in peace. It will be a while before he wakes up," she said.

I followed Twilight back down the hallway towards the main lobby.

When we reached the front desk, she stopped. Turning around to face me, she said, "I'm guessing that bringing Lucky to safety wasn't the only reason you came here. So, why else are you here?"


	2. Chapter 2: New Friends, Old Friends

Authors note: I did not expect to get such a large amount of readers so quickly, kinda was rushed to get chapter 2 up. I am already working on typing up chapter 3 (in reality, I have about 20 chapters written in my notebook, just too lazy to type them all), which will be much longer than the first two. For those interested, the actual ponification doesn't happen until chapter 5, so I'll be doing my best to get the story uploaded to there ASAP. But enough with me blabbering on, here is chapter two of Odd One Out.

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><p><strong>Ch.2: New Friends, Old Friends<strong>

"Well, um, to get ponified, I suppose," I replied sheepishly.

"Ok then, let's get you signed in," Twilight cheerfully said, her face brightening, "and we can board you until we get set up." She led me to a check-in sheet where I wrote my name.

"Usually we collect more information to see if you are a part of the HLF, but since you practically saved Lucky's life, I think we can trust you Johannes," Twilight remarked, glancing at my signature.

"It's pronounced Jones, Miss Sparkle," I corrected.

"Oh, sorry about that. By the way, you can just call me Twilight; everypony else does, and frankly, Miss Sparkle makes me feel way too old," replied Twilight, giggling a bit, and leading me down a hall to a dormitory. "Well, here is your room."

We arrived at a door near the end of the hall. Opening it, I looked around at my new lodgings, the room was fairly small, and reminded me a bit of a hotel room, minus the overly extravagant accommodations they usually had. The door had no doorknob, which worried me for a bit, until I saw a large button labeled lock, about waist height on the wall next to the door.

"Well, even ponies like privacy I suppose," I thought, dropping my few belongings on the bed.

"Orientation begins in a few minutes, so we better get going," said Twilight, glancing at a wall clock. Orientation was fairly boring, but informative. Personally, considering I was the only human there, I saw very little point in it. Once orientation was over, a bright pink pony, literally bounced into the room, with a grin on her face. "Twilight!" she called, "Guess what?"

"What is it Pinkie Pie?" asked Twilight, visibly annoyed. "We have a new visitor," replied Pinkie Pie, oblivious of Twilight's subtle hint. I briefly wondered what other human would brave the mob outside, when the doors opened, and said visitor stepped through.

"Jimmy!" I exclaimed, giving my best friend a hug, "What are you doing here?"

"Well," Jimmy said, "I saw you on the news, saving that Pegasus, and then you were gone for an awfully long time… so," he looked at the ground, "are you going to do it?" he asked, "You know, turn yourself into one of those things," he motioned his head towards Twilight in slight disgust.

"Yes," I replied firmly. This changed Jimmy's attitude, and he began to slightly cry.

"Please don't do this man; you're my last friend in this place, my family, all of my other friends, all ponies. You're the last one who is still human, please don't go."

I sighed, "I was afraid of this, look, if it's ok with Twilight here, why don't you stay and see me get ponified. I mean, a photo and a phone call isn't the same as seeing someone as a pony, am I right?"

Jimmy nodded in response. "So is it ok with you Twilight? I asked.

"Sure, Jimmy can stay with you while you're here, and who knows, maybe seeing you as a pony will give him some ideas of his own." Jimmy went off to go sign in and Twilight gave me a strange look.

"What?" I asked.

"You're different then other humans," she said, staring into my eyes, "I mean, I've seen others come in to get ponified, with their friends giving them the same reaction, but all they ever do is either ignore or reject them, or just plain out say that they should become a pony. You're the first who's ever suggested a middle ground, I have only made friends with a few humans who come here, but you, you're something special, there's something different about you, not just mentally, but physically as well, I just can't put my hoof on it."

At that moment, Jimmy returned and Twilight abandoned her previous train of thought, "All right, since you two are new and I have the rest of the day off, why don't I give you the grand tour starting with the greenhouses. Come on." With that she trotted off, Jimmy and I having to jog to catch up.


	3. Chapter 3: Hard Truths

**Chapter 3: Hard Truths**

As we entered the greenhouses, Twilight began to explain their function, "These are the greenhouses, all of the bureau's pony food is grown here, unlike humans, ponies prefer not to have their food stuffed full of chemicals in factories, we prefer to have our food grown naturally, no pesticides or sprays. The greenhouses also serve another function for our pegasus ponies, especially since the recent HLF attacks. They provide a safe, sheltered area, for the pegasi to learn to fly or simply practice. Here they are safe from any gusts of wind, or snipers."

Twilight continued talking as we rounded a corner, and almost bumped into a pegasus, taking care of some mice. Twilight was startled for a moment, but smiled, as she seemingly recognized the pony. "Oh, hey Fluttershy," she said.

"Hi Twilight, um, who are they?" asked Fluttershy, a yellow Pegasus with a pink mane.

"These are new arrivals, Joe and Jimmy, replied Twilight, Joe here was the one who saved Lucky Breeze."

"Oh, hello," said Fluttershy addressing me, "I'm very grateful for your kindness to Lucky." Fluttershy seemed to warm up to us, not talking as softly as before.

"Oh, before I forget," added Twilight, "The area around the bureau has been declared a pegasus no-fly zone because of what happened to Lucky."

"Okay Twilight," said Fluttershy, "But I think Rainbow Dash is going to be disappointed."

"Who's Rainbow Dash?" I asked. My answer came in the form of a sky blue pegasus with a rainbow mane crashing into me.

"Owww," I moaned, getting up off the ground.

"Hehe, sorry about that," the pegasus apologized. Turning her attention to Twilight, she cried, "What do you mean a no-fly zone? I've been cramped in here forever, my wings are about to shrivel off."

"I'm sorry Rainbow dash," responded Twilight, but after what happened to Lucky, it's just way too dangerous."

"I'm pretty sure I could have out flown that missile," boasted Rainbow Dash, stretching her wings.

"I doubt that," I replied, "That was a Quantum tracking missile."

"A quantum what-now?" asked Rainbow Dash, clearly confused.

"A Quantum tracking missile," I repeated, "It was a top secret project by the United States government. The Quantum tracking missile was the pinnacle of wartime technology, its sensors were capable of tracking a target throughout the narrow corridors of a building. Evasive maneuvers were useless against it, as it would slow down or speed up in order to not lose its target. Heck, it was supposed to be able to rotate 180 degrees in mid-air, if it overshot its target."

Rainbow dash's face fell, then brightened, as she said, "Well it obviously was meant to track your big metal flying things, and not small, nimble pegasi. Besides, all I have to do is lead it into the shield, and the missile should be destroyed."

I looked at the ground, unwilling to make eye contact with the ponies. "Two problems with your idea; One, the missile can pass through the shield."

"What!" cried Twilight and Rainbow Dash in unison.

"One of the missile's abilities is to phase itself, in order to pass through energy fields, magical energy fields included."

"And the second reason?" asked Twilight.

"The second reason is that the missiles were specifically designed to destroy pegasi."

"What!" screamed Rainbow dash, "Why?"

"It was a top secret government project, put in place shortly after contact was made with the ponies. It was created for national defense, in case the United States was ever attacked by Equestria." I said, looking up, "You can't really blame them, I mean, we live for centuries thinking that we are the only sentient species on this planet, and then all of a sudden, these ponies appear, with magic and flight, and say "Oh, we would like to expand past our island, and live with all of you, but you can't come to our island because the magic there will kill you, so we'll put up a shield which allows ponies through but keeps humans out, so we can visit your country but you can't visit ours." The whole setup does sound kind of fishy, don't you think?"

Twilight looked at the ground, "Well, when you put it that way, it does." looking directly at me, she added, "But, I think the more important question is how do you know all this? You said yourself that it was a top secret project, so how do you know so much about it?"

"Umm, because, you see..." I stammered, as Twilight continued to stare at me. I sighed, "I was sort of in charge of the project."

"What? You worked on a project made to kill ponies! Then why are you even here? You say you want to be a pony, but in reality you're trying to sabotage us, right?" exclaimed Rainbow Dash.

"No, its nothing like that, I had orders, and if you worked in my department, you knew that you either follow orders, or the higher ups make you disappear, and by that I mean kill you. Besides, they were never supposed to be used, only built as a precaution. As for why I left, it was when I overheard some security guards talking about missile shipments to the HLF," I looked Twilight in the eyes, "At that moment I decided I didn't want to be human anymore, I didn't want to have any more of my work be used to kill."


	4. Chapter 4: Elements of Annoyance

hello everypony, I finally decided to get around to updating this!

A message to readers of this and my Mlp/halo crossover, who thought they would get another update for it, but instead had me update this: LOL, u mad? (insert trollface here)

So, for anypony wondering, Change is actually based off of Navi, a character from TLOZ: ocarina of time,(for those of you who haven't played the game, she is this little fairy who follows you around and, i think, is really annoying).

The turn into other pony species thing, was actually taken from the MLP animators, they end up having so many species errors, in the show that i thought to try it on purpose.

Before anypony says I was copying off of anything already written, (if I am, haven't checked EQ daily) let it be known, that I began writing this soon after the 1st chapter of the conversion burea came out, no side stories existed yet. (Change was actually only created recently, I had him replace a character that my friend begged me to put in later. His character made little sense, and by inserting Change I was able to flesh out the story a bit.)

If you have any questions please PM me.

To stave off any questions/comments that are going to be pointless to reply to, this stoery is now classified as: Grimdark,Humor,WTF.

p.s. to micheal blackburn: If you are reading this, and you complain about paragraph spacing, I will sic Luna on you, and she will send you to the moon, again.

Now, time for the readers help remove my writers block: I need your opinions, on what would be a good cutie mark for the Jones-pony. (Trust me, I've thought about this for weeks, and still cannot find the perfect mark for him.) I would prefer if you PM-ed me your Ideas, so as not to clutter up the review section. I'll chose the one I like best, and add it into the next chapter, along with accrediting the maker. But, if I don't recieve any good ones, I will use my own, and probably switch back to only updating my other story, if i can't think of one.

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><p>Ch.4: Elements of Annoyance<p>

Twilight stared at me, her mouth agape, for a few minutes before slowly closing it and saying, "Wow, I...I Just can't imagine how that must feel."

"You shouldn't," I replied, "On that day, something inside of me broke, and I just stopped caring. After I quit the position, I would sit at home, and think to myself, "So what if my creations could be used to kill hundreds of ponies, I'm not in charge of the project anymore, it's not my fault, it's my superior's." Nevertheless, every time I heard of a pony going missing, or being attacked, I always felt a pang of guilt. Eventually, my depression grew, until the world was nothing but a dark abyss. Then yesterday, I felt something, I can't describe it other than a light that banished the darkness, letting me see the world again, my depression vanishing. I heard a voice say, "Nothing is ever constant, change will always find a way." There was a small flash of light, and a pamphlet for the Conversion Bureaus appeared on my lap. After that, I washed up, drove to a nearby vehicle drop of point, and walked here where I saw the crowd, and the rest, you know."

I sat down on the ground, and began to fiddle with a blade of grass.

"Well you're with us now," said Twilight, nudging my cheek with her nose, "And ponies never betray their friends."

"Thanks Twilight," I said, wiping a tear from my eye. I felt a hand on my shoulder, and looked up to see Jimmy giving me a slight smile, which a returned with some effort. I looked back to Twilight, _What is so wrong with ponies?_ I wondered, _they laugh, they care, they love, they are everything good about humanity, what do we have that they don't; war, prejudice, hate, betrayal, greed. The only thing that's keeping us back are those emotions, and humanity's stubbornness against change._ I recalled the voice that had brought me back to the light, and made my decision.

"I want to go through with the ponification now," I said, standing up.

"What?" asked Twilight, taken aback.

"I've thought about it, and there is no more reason for me to be human. There's no use dwelling on the past, because the future always changes," I said, thinking of the voice.

"But what about the transition time," said Twilight, "You need to stay here for at least a week to determine if-,"

"If what?" I asked, my temper rising, "If I want to stay a Murderer! Sure I get it; you don't want someone like me in your country, hoping I'll change my mind." "Jones, that's not-"

"Do you know what I see every time I close my eyes? I see the images of ponies that have been brutally wounded by the HLF, every time I see that, I wonder if it was by my hand. Now, every time I blinked today, I saw Lucky being shot with MY missile. Do you know what that's like?"

"Joe, they weren't hurt by your hand, they could have been hurt by the launcher, but it wouldn't be your fault," said Jimmy, laying a hand on my shoulder.

"Yes it would," I said, shrugging it off, "My hand approved the schematics. My hand oversaw the programming and assisted where needed. My hand wrote the check to build the prototype. My hand authorized the mass production. Don't you dare tell me it wasn't my fault!"

"Whoa, okay, okay," said Jimmy, raising his hands defensively, "So what is becoming a pony going to accomplish?"

"I can change, change for the better." I replied, calming down, "A new beginning, where I can undo all the wrongs I have committed, and change both myself, and the world for the better. Isn't that what Ponification is about Twilight, a new start?"

She nodded, and replied, "I understand, many people come to the Conversion Bureaus to escape from pain. We've had a couple of HLF members turn and get ponified to try to forget the crimes they have done and remove the pain, becoming some of our most valued defense officials, but your case is special, I'm not sure Ponification will fully heal you, It will lessen the pain, but we will have to treat you after it is done. I'll see what I can do for you to be ponified right away. Come on girls, we need to have a meeting." With that, Twilight, Fluttershy, and Rainbow dash headed for the lobby.

Once we were alone, Jimmy asked, "I've been wondering, only a handful of the wounded ponies are pegasi, why do you think that your missile hurt them?"

"Oh, they didn't use the actual system," I replied, "I'm not sure that they even figured it out until recently. You know how the wounded ponies usually have deep cuts or gashes on them."

"Yeah."

"Well, I see those gashes, and I know where they came from, parts of the missiles."

"What? Why would they use them as clubs?"

"Not the whole missiles no, each guidance fin is razor sharp, and made from lightweight specially treated titanium, they can cut through a block of solid steel with only 15 pounds of force, three times without even slightly dulling, the HLF realized that the fins would make good melee weapons fairly quickly I would guess. With 6 fins to a missile, and who knows how many missiles, they could easily arm their forces with those blades."

"But then why weren't the ponies decapitated or sliced through?"

"Strange huh? Well I thought so too, and it turns out, that the titanium is somehow repelled by the pony skeletal structure. Great for cutting flesh, but little more effective than a butter knife against bone."

"So when you saw those gashes you knew-"

"Yes, horrifying isn't it? You can bring me a picture of a slashed pony, and I can tell you exactly what kind of part they used, since they were so effective the HLF rarely used anything else, and exactly how the attacker used it. Oh, you know the bombing of that Bureau not long ago, after which they put up the shields?"

"Yes."

"Well, I looked at the photos, read the forensic analysis report, and realized that the bomb the HLF used was none other than the ordinance system of one of my missiles. I'm indirectly responsible for everything the HLF has done to these ponies, almost as much as the leader of the HLF itself."

"No, you're not," said Jimmy, sternly, "The Leader of the HLF knows what he is doing and choses to continue down this path. You, on the other hand, thought you were doing the right thing, and that the weapon was never to be used."

"Huh, right and wrong can have some strange definitions nowadays. I wonder why I don't just join the HLF, I'm positive, that with me on board, they would be able to wipe out the ponies in a matter of months. But if I join the ponies, I could stop them."

"What makes you so sure that you're the game changer? In fact, how can you help the ponies once becoming one?"

I chuckled, "Didn't you learn anything from working with me? A good programmer always leaves themselves a back door. The missiles are no different, I can access their programming and, either shut them down permanently," I closed my eyes, "or remove their targeting restrictions and allow them to target anything, buildings, ponies, you name it. I want to do the right thing, and protect the ponies, but in the back of my head, there's this voice that keeps nagging me to take the easy way out, join the HLF, and get rewarded handsomely at the end. If I become a pony, I know that voice will go away, but if I don't, a week will be too long. Every minute, that voice gets stronger, singing it's siren's song, trying to lure me in."

"I see," said Jimmy, putting his hand on my shoulder again, "But you're a good man Joe, I'm sure you'll make the _right_ choice." he added, ruffling my hair. I smiled, his infectious good mood making it unforced.

Leaning down, I picked up a blade of grass, and used it to whistle my favorite childhood song. Jimmy listened to it, his eyes closing as he recalled the carefree days of our childhood, a time of peace, where everything made sense. Once I was done, I could hear him clapping politely, but it was lost on me as I gazed at the blade, with sorrowful understanding.

"What's wrong?" asked Jimmy, seeing my expression.

"I just realized that I'm never going to be able to do this again once I become a pony," I answered, looking up.

"Well then you better enjoy it while it lasts," he replied, picking up his own blade, "So how about it? A duet, like in the good old days."

I nodded, and we closed our eyes began playing together, song after song, some mysterious force keeping us perfectly in tune, never opening our eyes, but always knowing which song to play next. I wasn't sure how much time had passed, but when we had played our final song and opened our eyes, we found Twilight lying on the grass in front of us.

"That was beautiful music," she said, clapping her hooves together.

"I have no idea how we managed to keep in time with each other." I commented.

"I do," replied Twilight, "The magic of friendship, I guess it extends to humans too, or maybe just because of the ambient magic, I really should study this," Twilight began muttering to herself.

I looked at Jimmy, who shrugged, and asked, "Umm Twilight, what did they say?"

"Huh? Oh! They said that due to your unique trauma inducing circumstances, they've accepted you for express ponification. I need you to follow me please." I breathed a sigh of relief, and, after giving Jimmy a man hug, followed Twilight to the lobby.

Behind the front desk, was a door, marked simply Ponification. This was the door that Twilight was leading me to. I involuntarily gulped, as I crossed the threshold and stepped into the hospital white room beyond. The room was bare save for a single floor to ceiling mirror, a computer terminal, a strange looking bed, and a tray containing a vial, syringe, an a cup of purple liquid.

"Take off your clothes," instructed Twilight. It felt weird stripping naked in front of this filly, but I calmed myself on the fact that ponies were technically naked all the time. Once I had finished stripping and sat on the bed, Twilight levitated a cup over to me.

"Drink it," she said. I looked at the cup, containing all of my hopes and dreams, in my hand, and before I could have any second thoughts, downed it in one gulp. "How long before it takes effect?" I asked.

"The sedative should take hold any second now, trust me, you don't want to go through this awake, just relax." I did as she said, my eyelids growing heavier. Lying down on the bed, I tried to see how long I could stay awake. Right before my vision faded, I could feel Twilight inject something into my arm, and then everything went black. I had heard of people having visions of the princesses while undergoing ponification, so when I suddenly awakened without having any sort of vision or dream, I was very surprised. Raising my arm in front of my face, my surprise grew still, as I saw the five fingered fleshy appendage still attached. I was still human.

Looking around the room, I saw Twilight, standing by the tray, facing away from me.

"Umm Twilight," I said, desperately hoping that something hadn't gone wrong.

"Yes?" she replied, her gaze still fixated on the tray.

"Shouldn't I be a pony now?" "Of course you are, why wouldn't you be?" she replied, finally turning around. Upon seeing me, her jaw dropped open, and she simply stared for a few seconds. Once her initial shock had passed, she rushed over to the computer terminal, and began to frantically type, using her magic. "I have no idea what happened," she said, seeming to talk to herself more than me, "I mean, we've had a human reject the serum in very rare cases, but it's usually where it doesn't even knock them out, we've never had someone just wake up, still human."

As Twilight continued to type, I noticed a faint glow appear just above her head. The glow brightened, and then shaped itself into a tiara, seemingly made of pure energy, which rested on Twilight's head.

"Hey Twilight," I said, trying to get her attention. Twilight ignored me, still focused on the computer.

"Twilight!" I yelled.

"What?" she asked, spinning around to face me. I pointed to her head, and her gaze moved to the tiara, gasping as she saw it. "My element!" she exclaimed, "But we gave those to Celestia, what is it doing here?"

"What element?" I asked, confused. Twilight opened her mouth to say something, but stopped, as her eyes suddenly blazed with pure white light.

"Twilight what are you doing? No! Twilight, Stop!" I yelled, as the light increased in brightness, filling the room, and beginning to burn me. I screamed, as my body experienced more pain than it had ever known, my very cells seeming to cry out in agony.

Suddenly, the pain vanished. Carefully opening my eyes, I found myself floating in a white void. "Hello?" I called out, "Is anyone there?"

"Jones!" I heard a voice cry out, and Twilight appeared in front of me.

"Twilight," I said, relieved not to be alone, "Where are we?"

"I don't know," she replied, looking around.

"Where you are doesn't matter," a new voice, deep and majestic, spoke up, "Who you are, does."

Twilight's tiara, transformed into a purple ball of light, that floated by her side, and pulsed as the voice said, "I am the Element of Magic, carried within the unicorn Twilight Sparkle."

"Wait, you can talk?" asked Twilight, clearly as surprised as I was.

"Yes," it replied, "I am the culmination of the knowledge and personalities of all the bearers before you Twilight Sparkle; I am only able to communicate to you now, because we are not in the physical world, but in a realm outside. This is irrelevant however, for the real reason we are here, is because an ancient and powerful Element has finally found a home."

"Umm, quick question, what's an Element?" I asked. "An element is an ancient and powerful magical artifact, from the beginning of Equestria." explained the Element of Magic, "Each one takes a host, or bearer, who is a pony that represents it most. Twilight and her closest friends are all bearers of an Element of Harmony, and now, so are you."

"Jones? Jones is a bearer of an Element of Harmony? I thought there were only six." asked Twilight. "There are only six Elements of Harmony," replied the Element of Magic, "But, while the Elements are the most powerful and important Elements, we cannot do everything. There are other Elements, active during a time of great conflict, before Celestia and Luna were even born. When the princesses ended the Conflict and remade Equestria, they erased all mention of the Time Before, and the Elements entered a deep slumber, their usefulness in Equestria's millennium of peace, gone. But now, a great war looms on the horizon of time, the voices of the ancient Elements are beginning to stir. The time for Equestria's full power to be tested is drawing near. The first of the Ancient Elements of Power has awakened, the Element of Change."

Motes of light began appearing in the void, swirling around us and being drawn to a point directly in front of me. When all the motes had gathered, there was a bright flash, and a silver ball of light appeared in their place.

"Hi there!" it said, in a cheerful voice that seemed almost childish.

"Hello," I replied, uncertainly.

"I'm the Element of Change, but you can call me Change, I don't like big titles, but the others do." Change said, flying in circles around my head, "Oh this is going to be so much fun, I've been asleep for a really long time, and I mean _really_ long time, but now I'm here, with you, and we're going to be the best of friends!. I'm sorry, what is your name?" it asked, finally shutting up.

"My name is Jones," I answered, "You're different than the Element of Magic aren't you?"

Twilight giggled and said, "You sound a lot like Pinkie Pie."

"Change is a unique Element," said The Element of Magic, "He has only had two previous bearers one of which was an ancestor to the current element of Laughter, so he has developed his own sense of self while asleep. Treat Change not so much as an Element, but as a friend, although he may seem young and naive, he is more powerful than any single Element. Only together, are the Elements of Harmony more powerful than Change."

"Yay, now that we all know each other, let's get this show on the road!" said Change. Before I could ask what he meant by that, Change shot a blinding beam of light at me. Closing my eyes to shield them, my body began to feel strange, and I could hear my bones creaking and groaning. After a few panicked moments, I realized what Change was doing, he was ponifying me. I relaxed and let my body change, I could feel my skeletal structure rearranging, flesh being broken and reformed, but I only knew this as a fact that it was happening, I felt no pain at all, just a strange tingling sensation.

After a few minutes, the light dimmed and went out, and my body stopped changing. Opening my eyes, I looked around, surprised at how different everything looked from a pony's eyes, every single color was brighter, and the entire world seemed to be filled with joy. I tried to twist my neck around to see the rest of my new body, but the void seemed to prevent any sort of movement.

"Hey Twilight, what am I?" I asked, "I can't quite move that much."

"You're a unicorn stallion Jones," she replied, adding, "And a quite handsome one at that," after a few seconds. Upon saying this, her eyes widened, and she tried to do something with her hoof, groaning as she failed.

"Well, I suppose that we should be heading back to the real world now," piped up Change, "Before these two love birds do something even more awkward."

"What?" exclaimed Twilight and I simultaneously.

"So, you ready Magic?" asked Change, ignoring us.

"Yes, Goodbye Twilight, Goodbye Jones, until we meet again," said, Magic, before flying into Twilight's chest and disappearing. Change did the same to me, choosing to fly into my horn instead. There was another blinding flash, and I found myself opening my eyes, lying on the ponification bed.

Looking around, the difference of pony sight was even clearer, as the formerly drab and dull ponification room, seemed to shine with internal brightness. I carefully twisted myself into a sitting position, the mirror on the wall letting me finally get a good look at myself.

My new coat was pitch black, seemingly absorbing all light striking it. My mane, on the other hoof, was a dark blue, with a streak of silver running down it, like a shaft of moonlight. I heard a groan, and saw Twilight lying on the floor, regaining consciousness. I tried to stand up, to lend her a helping hoof, but remembered too late that I was no longer human and crashed to the ground after a single step. Luckily, the thump that was created as I landed on my stomach, legs splayed out, woke Twilight up. She quickly noticed my predicament, and asked, "Are you okay?"

"No," I said, "Can you help me up?"

"Well I can help you learn how to get up yourself. First, get your legs back under you." I did as she asked, and after a few attempts, managed to get all four of my legs underneath me.

"Now, just stand up, remember you have four legs now, not two." I pushed off the ground, and managed to stand up on all fours. I gave Twilight a grin, as I carefully maintained my balance.

"Good, now on to walking. The order in which you move your hooves, is front left, back right, front right, back left." I carefully followed Twilight's instructions, and after only a few falls, managed to walk two complete laps around the room without falling. "I think I'm getting the hang of this," I said, no longer having to concentrate as much on the order of my footsteps. "Good job," said Twilight, "Don't worry if you fall, most newfoals have a hard time for the first day or so, afterwards it becomes natural."

"Newfoals?"

"Ponified humans," explained Twilight.

"But you have to admit it was pretty funny watching him fall," said a familiar voice.

"Who said that?" I asked, looking around.

"It's only been 10 minutes and you've already forgotten me?" the voice said.

"Change?" I asked, recognizing the voice, "Is that you?"

"Well duh," he replied. Silver light began to radiate from my horn, and after a few seconds, Change emerged, exclaiming, "Tadah!"

"Change, what are you doing here?" I asked, "Wait, Twilight, can you see him?"

"No, she can't," said Change, "She thinks you are crazy and talking to thin air."

"I can see you Change," said Twilight, annoyance clearly written on her face, "I'm wondering, just like Jones is, how are you here?"

"Well, like Magic said, I'm different than the other elements. I'm the only one that can exist in the physical world, I'm just lucky you turned out to be a unicorn, or else it would have been way harder to emerge. But, since you're my bearer, it wouldn't really matter what you started out as."

"What do you mean by that?" I asked.

"Well, the reason I had to ponify you was because being my bearer gives you special abilities. Thanks to the ponification serum, I was able to perform the change alone, otherwise, I would have needed the help of the other elements of power in order to implement the change on even a regular pony."

"Focus, Change," I said, "What do you mean by abilities?"

"Well, along with having fairly powerful magic, you can change into any other pony species at will."

"What?" I exclaimed, disbelievingly.

"Yup, its super cool, you should try it out, just think of a different type of pony, and my magic will do the rest."

"Ok, here goes," I said, closing my eyes and beginning to concentrate. The first thoughts that came to my mind were pegasus ponies, and Rainbow dash. I focused on her, feeling Change's magic wrap around the image. I felt the familiar tingling feeling from when Change was transforming me, but not as intensely. After few moments, the feeling vanished, and I opened my eyes.

The first thing I saw, was Twilight sitting across from me, slack-jawed. "Did it work?" I asked. She nodded slowly. I noticed something was wrong with my voice. "Wait, what happened to my voice?" I asked, my voice coming out feminine, with a boyish rasp to it. Twilight pointed a hoof at the mirror, and I quickly walked over to the mirror, my jaw dropping as I saw my reflection. Staring back at me from the mirror was a perfect replica of Rainbow Dash.

* * *

><p>This chapter was actually twice as long, but my stupid word processor decided to crash, and only save up to this point.<p> 


	5. Chapter 5: Semper Fi

Hey it's me again, I finally got the final version of chapter 5 up.

The previous version had some problems with the character development.

Oh, by the way, Luna and I recently started a blog. But I wont tell you all the address until we have it fully set up.

Luna says hi by the way.

Hey, guess what, the war with Celestia is back on. That mule couldn't uphold our truce and so it's back to the bunker for Luna and I.

Luckily, I can still to school, since Celestia is too concerned about her reputation to harm innocent colts.

The details of her treachery can be found in my latest blog post. Oh wait, you don't know where that is. *troll face*

Sigh, well, I'll try to get the next chapter for MLH up.

P.s: The fluttershy teaser chapter, that actually is from the sequel i have planned. Sorry, needed to put something up.

* * *

><p>Chapter 5: Semper Fi<p>

"Bwahaha! Oh, you are metaphorically killing me right now" laughed Change, as I spun around and around in front of the mirror, my brain refusing to believe my eyes.

"Ha-ha, very funny," I said, sitting down on my haunches and glaring at him, "Now tell me how to turn back."

"Oh, it's simple; you just have to focus on your original form again."

"Umm," I said, realizing that I had forgotten how I originally looked during my moment of panic. "Oh, let me guess," said Change, flying right in front of my face, "You forgot your original form didn't you."

"Kinda."

Change burst out into a new round of laughter, before suddenly stopping, and saying, "Well, then it looks like you'll be stuck that way," Change floated up to my ear and whispered, "Forever!"

The finality of it struck me, and my mind couldn't take it anymore. I broke down crying. "No, this can't be happening," I sobbed, "I don't want to live the rest of life as a filly, and especially not as a gay pride pony."

"Celestia, I can't believe it," said Change, "Fillies these days, 20% water, 40% hormones."

I managed to focus on him just enough through my tear filled eyes, to give him a weak glare.

"Geez, calm down already," he said, landing on Twilight's head, "There is a way to revert to your original form, a failsafe I implemented after that, incident, with my first bearer, it's really simple, and you don't have to remember your original form."

"Alright, then tell me it," I said, wiping the tears from my eyes.

"Why in Equestria would I do that? This is hilarious. Maybe I'll tell you, but only after you find yourself a nice stallion, settle down somewhere, and-".

That was as far as Change got, before Twilight wrapped him in a telekinetic field, and began to violently shake him, "You tell Rainbow- I mean Jones how to turn back right now!" she demanded, increasing the ferocity of her shakes.

"Umm, no," said Change, easily escaping from Twilight's spell, "You are the bearer of the Element of Magic, giving you extremely powerful magic, but, I am the Element of Change, which means, that although the strength of my, and therefore Jones's magic is only close to as powerful as yours, for example, Jones would never be able to lift an Ursa Minor, but, my nature allows him to learn new spells quickly and easily, and due to my extensive spell knowledge, which I for some reason can't pass on to anypony, I know the counter spell to any spell you wish to throw at me, so you can't get me with magic. In addition, if you get any Ideas about grabbing me, just know that I am intangible to ponies, besides my bearer, anytime I want to be."

Change's slip-up proved to be a life saver for me. Gathering all my strength into my rear legs, I launched myself into the air, catching Change in my teeth, and crash landing on the floor. Once I regained my train of thought after the impact, I bit down on Change, Hard.

"Oww, that hurts, stop!" he cried, adding, "You bite like a girl," a few seconds later. My response was to increase the force exerted by my jaw. "Ok, Ok, You win," he said, quickly flying out of reach once I had let go.

"Do you realize how much work it takes to polish this?" he asked, "and now I have to clean all of your spit off of myself, If it were another pony, I could simply phase and it would go right through me, but no, I can't do that because you're my bearer."

"Wait, you polish yourself?" I asked, "With what? Wait, never mind, I probably don't want to know."

"Really, oh well then, who want to help rub me with my special,_ lotion_," asked Change.

Twilight's pupils shrunk to pinpoints, and she fell over backwards. I actually threw up a bit from the mental image. My horror induced regurgitation reminded me of something, as did my stomach, I hadn't eaten for hours.

"Hey Twilight, I'm kind of getting hungry." I said, my stomach rumbling in agreement.

"Oh, don't worry," she said, probably trying to forget all about Change's lubricant, "Pinkie Pie is throwing you a Re-birthday party right now in your room, all of my friends will be there, the other elements, so Change will be safe to fly around."

"That's it!" exclaimed Change, "I'll tell you how to change back, right after the party." "Wait, so you mean that I'll have to attend the party as _Rainbow Dash_?"

"Oh don't worry about it; I'm sure it'll be fine." reassured Twilight, "My friends are really nice ponies, as I'm sure you know, already having met two of them."

"Yeah, except my meeting with Rainbow Dash didn't go so well, if you remember."

"Oh, right, but Rainbow doesn't hold a grudge, so you'll be okay. She's actually a pretty nice pony once you get to know her."

"I think I've gotten to know her way more than I'm comfortable with," I said, motioning towards my body.

"I guess I see your point, but I meant to say was that if you get closer to her, I'm sure she-"

"I'm inside her!" I retorted, "How much closer can I get?"

Change let out a snicker. "Yes Change, I know how that can be translated, but I'm not withdrawing my remark."

"What I'm trying to say," said Twilight, beginning again, "Is that you should get to know the real pony inside, wait no, you should take a closer look, wait that still doesn't work, You, you, AARGH!" cried Twilight, flustered, "You know what I'm trying to say!"

I chuckled, "I think I get your point Twilight," I said, "But as much fun as being a living, breathing freak show is, I think I'll have to pass on putting myself up for show for your friends' amusement."

"Jones!" exclaimed Twilight, "My friends are nothing like that, they're kind, caring, virtuous ponies. Don't you trust me?"

I sighed, and said, "To be honest, No."

"What?" exclaimed Twilight, taken aback.

"Over the years," I continued, "I've learned that trust, is not something to be given easily. In this entire planet, there are only 4 beings who I trust; myself, Jimmy, Change, and one certain human. I don't know about how ponies view trust, but my work has taught me, that the sooner you trust someone, the sooner they can stab you in the back."

"Wait, why do you trust Change? You met him just recently."

"When we melded, for a brief moment, our minds were linked, so to speak, and we both knew everything we needed to know about the other."

"Okay, one last question, what exactly was your last profession? I know you worked on the quantum missile launcher, but what else did you do that bred so much mistrust in you?"

"It's a long story, can I tell it on the way to the party?"

"So you agree to going?"

"Well, my stomach agrees more than my head."

Twilight giggled, and held open the door for me to carefully walk through. "This way," she said, walking down the hall.

I increased my speed to match hers and began, "Well, have you heard of the top secret military zone called Area 51?" "Yes, it's where some humans believe alien technology is hidden."

"Well, if there were aliens, I didn't have access to their locations. Anyway, Area 51 is just low clearance junk, compared to where I worked, Sector Delta."

"Sector Delta? Where was that?"

"I'm not sure, I can tell you where some of the entrances are, but the distance between them, compared to their distance in the complex, makes me suspect that Sector Delta wasn't anywhere on the planet at all, or even possibly space and time.

But I'm getting off track. Many of the experiments and technologies developed there were so advanced, I can't speak of them, even though I'm technically not forbidden to anymore, being a pony, and if I did, you wouldn't believe me, or your head would get fried from trying to comprehend it at all. I can give you some vague-ish examples though. Some of the technologies included, teleportation, time travel, phase shifts, AI, trans-dimensional portals, molecular dehydration and rehydration of living things, etc.

As you probably have guessed, everyone wanted what was in Sector Delta, so, although security was at a maximum, there were infiltrations from time to time. Plans would go missing, generators and projects would get sabotaged, it was a mess. Nothing was ever stolen, security always managed to catch the culprit. Well, every time except for once. The only thing ever successfully stolen was an experimental armor module. I still wonder where it is today. Eventually, the security became so advanced, that no one who wasn't supposed to be in the sector could get there. So then the other organizations began to bribe the workers in Sector Delta."

"Bribe them? You mean that your co-workers would betray you for money?"

"Greed is a powerful influence in human society Twilight. Eventually, all employees were taught to care for and use a firearm."

"A gun!"

"Yes, let me finish. We went to special training courses, and project leaders, such as myself, were given special individual lessons, all for the purpose of identifying and arresting any individuals who would try to compromise our work. In short, the moral of the lesson was, Don't trust anyone.

So that's how I became untrusting of others. I think the ponification process may have caused me to regain a little bit of my trust in others, but it's hard to undo years of training," I finished, as we approached the door to my temporary room.

"Interesting," mused Twilight. I used my head to nudge the door to my room open, and stepped inside, into utter darkness.

"Umm hello? Where's the light?" I called. Suddenly, the light was turned on, and the room became visible, a vivid display of color, enhanced by my pony vision. The combination of light and color assaulting my retinas, combined with the deafening "Surprise!" that was exclaimed, proved to be too much for me. "You know what?" I thought, "I think I'm going to go to sleep now. How about the floor? Yeah, the floor sounds nice, Shutting down, Good night."

I collapsed onto the ground, the world slowly fading away. As I drifted in and out of consciousness, I heard snippets of conversation. "Rainbow Dash?" "- hope he's okay," "- that's amazing!" "-better write a letter to Princess Luna, since Celestia is busy with -".

"Luna?" my fading mind managed to think, "Wasn't Luna the name of Sector Delta's -"

I couldn't complete that thought, as I my mind decided on giving up the struggle to stay conscious.


	6. Chapter 6: Split Ends

Dear fillies and gentlecourts,

I am sorry to inform you, that both MLH, and Odd One out, will be on hold for an unknown amount of time.

The reason being, I have about zero time to write, due to schoolwork taking it all up. In addition, after seeing the nightmare night special, Luna has decided to become a little empress, so she feels that helping me is beneath her, and is content with shouting at me to do things for her.

I am sorry for this inconvinience, but I may return around winter wrap up break, so keep an eye out for me around that time.

Finally, I would like to tell everypony, that I have decided to start a Let's play of Fallout 3. (Out of character) If anypony wants to see it, my youtube username is shadowlightpony.

And so, I leave you all with this short, ominous, cliffhanger of an update, in addition to this message, which I will let you all try to decipher.

"Time line? Time is not made up out of lines, It is made up out of circles. That is why clocks are round."

Whoops, wrong line, oh here it is.

"A blessing and a curse, a strength, and a weakness. For you my dear Shadow, nothing is without change. All except five must come to their end, All except five must pass on. A fire is coming, consuming all, on the horizon they gather, like a swarm. All that is known about good and evil, shall be twisted. All that you know, will be broken. The time is coming, young Shadow, when you must choose where your loyalties lie, where you shall make the biggest sacrifice of all."

Have fun trying to figure this out. :)

p.s.: Gregarious- marked by a need for companionship.

* * *

><p>"Oh, my head," I groaned as I slowly regained consciousness. I opened my eyes, expecting to see a bunch of ponies looking down at me, but got a nasty surprise when all I could see, was utter darkness stretching in all directions.<p>

Carefully standing up, I was able to get a good look at my surroundings. The void was indeed in all directions, and I appeared to be standing on some sort of hard black surface.

"Hello? Girls? Anypony here?" I called out, my voice quickly being swallowed up by the void.

I was Alone.

A queer thing about ponies, is that they constantly need companionship. While this is widely seen, with many ponies being friendly towards one another, and forming lasting friendships, no one has tried to uncover why this is so. Interestingly enough, the friendly behavior evolved from a biological need. To put it simply, ponies need friends, or they die. If a pony is solitary for too long, their bodies will first flood their system with depressants, causing extreme depression. Afterwards, their internal organs will actually begin to fail, and shut down.

I unfortunately, was beginning to experience, this very biological phenomena. While my years of solitude at a desk, working day and night, had numbed me against gregariousness, A little of the depressants managed to make it through my mental shield.

I sat down on my haunches, and let out a small whimper.

"**Oh, look at the sad little pony."** A voice boomed from out of nowhere.

"Who's there?" I asked, my voice shaking a little.

**"I guess you could call me your co-element."** The voice said, seeming to emanate from everywhere at once. **"I have been called many names over the years, but one seems to suit me just fine. I am amazed your Element didn't recognize me, considering how similar we are."** I looked around for Change, but he was nowhere in sight. **"Oh, He's not here,"** the voice said, sounding surprised, **"Well then I guess It's just you and me."** This time, the voice sounded like it was coming from right behind me.

I turned around, and was muzzle to snout with a… _thing_. It looked like somepony had slapped a bunch of different animal parts onto a creature.

"Who are you?" I asked.

"I," it replied, "Am the Element of Discord, and I believe we have some buisness to discuss."


	7. Chapter 7: Complications

I bet you guys thought I would never continue this story.

Actually, I never thought I would continue it. The world is full of surprises i guess.

The reason for the extremely specific description at the end, is due to the fact that I wanted to emphasize that Shadowlight wasn't mimicking another pony. What he turned into was his base pegasus form. No aspect of him changed, other than his race, and tha other thing. (trying not to spoil story for those who read commentary first.)

P.s.: For some reason, when I copied the text for the chapter from my ipad, Fanfiction dropped some of the words . I've done my best to fix it, but I apologize if I missed anything.

You'll notice a change in writing style and spacing during the end. I'm trying to refine my writing based off of some well written fanfics.

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><p>I awoke to a sharp pain in the back of my neck. "Uughh," I moaned, my senses slowly returning to me. "Hey, I think he's awake." I heard Jimmy's voice say. "Wha-what happened?" I asked, my eyes closed. "You passed out on us," Twilight's voice said, "You transformed back into yourself, and we carried you over to the bed and waited for you to wake up." "I'll be honest," Jimmy's voice said, "For a while I thought we had lost you." I slowly opened my eyes, squinted at the blurry images of two of my friends.<p>

"Thanks for carrying me," I said. Looking around, I added, "Man, I can't see a thing. I don't suppose you have anything to clear my head, do you?" "Sorry, we don't have any medicine of that type at the bureaus." said Twilight, "Considering how long you've been out though, it's not surprising that there are some temporary side effects. They should go away on their own soon." "So," I said, "Can somepony fill me in on how long I've been asleep, and what I missed."

"You've been asleep for about two weeks," said Twilight, "Although you only began to show signs of waking up this morning. The HLF have increased their military presence around the bureau. About half of the protesters here two weeks ago have been replaced by HLF military. Jimmy has managed to intercept a few transmissions, and according to them, there has been a drastic increase in violence against ponies outside of Equestria. Other than that, we have no idea about what's going on in the world." "Wait, wouldn't the bureaus have their own intelligence network?" I said.

"Normally we would be supplied with information from the other bureaus, and receive news from the Equestria Daily magazine." said Twilight, However, the HLF seem to have somehow managed to block all magic in the area outside the bureau shield. We can still use magic here, but the field prevents any sort of teleportation into or out of the bureau. Essentially, we're trapped."

By the time Twilight had finished her speech, the fog had cleared from my mind, and I was fully alert. Jimmy looked at me and asked, "Do you think they're using Starshine?" "Makes sense," I replied, "If they completed it and found a way diffuse the beam into a field without a drastic power drop, it could work." "Umm, excuse me," said Twilight, "Pony not in the loop over here."

"Starshine was a weapon that was still in the early stages of development when I left Sector Delta. To sum it up, it was an anti-magic weapon that was supposed to be able to neutralize magical shields by using a random osscilation pattern, brodcasted at the same energy frequency that most magic operates on." Twilight opened her mouth to say something, but I slowly shook my head and she stopped. "So, anything interesting happen inside the bureau while I was out?" I asked. Twilight's eyes suddenly narrowed, and she looked at Jimmy and said, "Yes, why don't you tell him what you've been up to."

Jimmy shrugged and said, "Well, shortly after you passed out, your body went into some sort of stasis. Your heartbeat ceased, and your blood actually thickened to the point where it wouldn't even flow out through a cut," Jimmy began to look nervous as he continued, "So I sort of used the situation to do some surgery on you."

"What kind of surgery?" I asked, giving Jimmy a hard look. "I implanted you with the X-46 combat module," said Jimmy, biting his lower lip.

I stared at Jimmy for a few seconds, then burst out laughing. "So it was you who took it." I said, "I never imagined you as a thief Jimmy. I guess it is a good thing that you took it. Now we might have an advantage over the HLF."

I used my hooves to help me up to a sitting position on the bed.

"Maybe," he replied, "I saw them unpacking a few berserker drones earlier. Without that module, we'd have no chance against them."

"So how do we activate it?" I asked.

Jimmy froze, and said, "I thought you knew!" "No," I exclaimed, "I wasn't involved with that project. You were!" I sighed, and said, "This is so typical of you, Jimmy. You always rush into one of your plans, never stopping to actually think it through."

"Next time, actually ask me for my permission to run experiments on me." I said, "Remember what happened last time you tried something on me? It ended with me being exposed to 4 times the lethal dose of magical radiation! I never asked for that."

Jimmy looked down at the ground and mumbled an apology.

Twilight began looking at me with a quizzical look on her face.

Great, now I looked like the bad guy.

"Listen," I said, "I'm sorry if I was a little too harsh. I'm just upset about the circumstances. I havent even been able to spend a single day awake as a pony yet."

"That's right!" said Twilight, her face lighting up, "The girl's haven't seen your non-transformed state yet."

"Hold your horses there Twilight," said Jimmy, "We should see if Jones is completely okay first. Speaking of which, he needs still needs to choose a pony name for himself."

Jimmy was right. I looked at my body, contemplating what I could call myself.

Well, my black coat looked like it absorbed light pretty well. It looked kind of like a shadow. Wait, Shadow. That's a good first name. However, ponies usually have two parts to their name. Let's see.

Looking around, I saw a shining spot on the wall. I tilted my head to get a better look, and saw the spot move. I realized that my silver highlight was actually reflecting the light shining on me. Hmm, Light. That works. Shadow and Light. Shadow light. Shadowlight. Acting as two opposites, a perfect name for a pony with my abilities.

"I've got it," I said, "Shadowlight!"

Jimmy nodded with approval, saying, "I like what you did there with the two opposites in your name. Shadow and light, Yin and Yang. I like it."

"I agree," said Twilight, "It's the perfect name for you, Shadowlight."

I smiled at being called by my new name. I already felt closer to ponykind than humanity.

"As I was saying before," said Jimmy, "We need to make sure that Shadowlight is completely fine. Which means that we need to check if his abilities still work."

"Huh," said Twilight, looking around, "I just realized that I haven't seen Change anywhere since you were knocked out."

"And how is that a bad thing?" I asked with a smile.

I was actually quite happy that Change was gone, since it meant some peace and quiet for me.

"Aww, I didn't realize that you guys missed me so much," I heard a familiar voice.

Crap.

Change floated out of my horn and flew circles around me.

"When Shadowlight, (nice name by the way), fell unconscious, I felt myself shutting down for some reason," said Change, "I was stuck inside my own mind for a while. I'm still unsure why that happened, but it doesn't matter, because I'm here with all of you now!"

"That's nice and all, but can we please focus on checking Shadowlight's abilities!" exclaimed Jimmy.

"Fine, fine, I'll use them," I said, "Quit worrying so much."

I focused on becoming a pegasus, not specifically on Rainbow Dash this time, but just a pegasus in general.

I immediately wished I hadn't done that.

"SON OF A-" I screamed as every cell in my body suddenly felt like it was on fire.

I fell off of the bed, and lay on the ground, convulsing as my brain was assaulted with a constant barrage of pure pain.

The pain in my head suddenly increased, and I heard a sickening grinding sound, as my horn receded into my forehead.

As the pain in my head began to diminish, it increased in my sides. It felt as if red hot knives were jabbing their way out of my body. I managed to look at my sides long enough to see black wings growing from them.

Eventually, the pain diminished and went away. I lay on the ground, breathing heavily for a few more minutes. I then stood up, and looked over at my friends.

The surprise on their faces instantly told me something was wrong. I shakily walked over to a mirror, that was conveniently in the room, looked into it, and swore under my breath.

The pony looking back at me from the mirror, had brown eyes, a black coat,a light blue mane and tail with a silver streak, and was, much to my horror, a cute pegasus mare.


	8. Chapter 8: Reconstruction

Hey everyone, I'm not dead!

I wrote this giant commentarry about this chapter, but fanfiction deleted it.

So, anyway, I'm to tired and sick to rewrite it, so I'll just ask you guys to comment on what you think of this chapter.

Also, check my profile page for a poll about who you want to see in My little halo. (Yes, I'm still working on that, give me time. Stupid brain switched idea generation stream to Odd one out.)

Oh, for more up to date info on odd one out and my little Halo, check out my deviantart page (palpatine213). It doesn't email me for new comments, but I check the site fairly often, as well as post journal entries about iseas and concepts.

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><p><strong>Ch. 6: Reconstruction<strong>

"What the hell!" I exclaimed, looking back and forth between myself and my reflection in the mirror, "Why am I female?!"

"I don't know," said Jimmy, "But you have to admit, it's not a bad look for you."

"What!" I growled, spinning around to face Jimmy and the others.

I instantly noticed that all three of them were visibly attempting to refrain from laughing.

After a few seconds, they lost control, and burst into laughter, Twilight laughing so hard that she actually fell over onto her back.

Great, I'm a laughingstock, again.

All my life,I had been laughed and made fun of.

Even when I had presented my theory on mental matter manipulation, my life's work, I ended up being laughed out of the institute. However Sector Delta learned of my theory and hired me.

Eventually, I had learned to hate many forms of laughter, hearing them brought up painful memories.

I lowered my gaze, unwilling to let them see the tears forming in my eyes.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jimmy stop laughing, and quickly get Twilight and Change to do the same, probably realizing what their laughter was making me remember.

"Sorry," he said, kneeling down next to me, "I know that memory hurts."

"No, It's okay," I said, "After what I just experienced with that transformation, I'm pretty sure all other pain will be numb."

"Is that right," asked Jimmy, playfully waggling his eyebrows.

I looked at him in confusion, then winced as he lightly punched me in the side.

"Oww," I said, a small smile tugging on the edges of my muzzle, "I didn't mean you should punch me."

"Be more specific next time," said Jimmy, sitting down cross legged and ruffling my forelock with his hand.

"Speaking of pain, what happened with my transformation?" I asked Change.

"Well, when I first began to bond with you, I noticed a large amount of turbulent magical energy within you," explained Change, "For some reason, that magic calmed moments after I first noticed it. I thought it was because I had joined with you, but it appears that something, or someone, was suppressing that energy. When you woke up from your coma, and tried to transform again, that energy was no longer suppressed. The energy must have interfered with, and corrupted my own magic, which explains your painful transformation."

"I'm guessing that energy came from when Jimmy irradiated me," I said.

"I said I was sorry," whined Jimmy, receiving a playful shove from me.

"What I'm wondering is what could possibly suppress that much energy?" asked Twilight, who had sat down next to me, while Change was talking, and was resting her head on my side.

Thinking back to the dream I had, I slowly said, "Discord."

"What? How do you know about Discord?" asked Twilight.

"He appeared to me in my dream," I said, "I think we talked about something, but for some reason, I can't remember anything from the dream."

"Well, considering the fact that he stopped suppressing that magic, and made you forget the conversation, you probably made him mad. Which is a good thing," said Change.

"But Discord was able to talk to him. That means the seal is weakening!" exclaimed Twilight, "He could escape!"

"No he can't," said Change, "I may have been asleep all these years, but that doesn't mean I was out of the cosmic loop. The other Elements have kept me informed of your adventures. While Shadowlight was talking about meeting Discord, I had a quick meeting with the other Elements."

"Wait a second," I said, "How long did that take you? You replied only a few seconds later."

"The meeting took about 2 picoseconds," replied Change, "Elements converse much faster with each other than mortals are able to comprehend. But that's not the important thing here. The reason that Discord was able to influence Shadowlight's energy, and converse with him,was due to the chaotic nature of the magic inside Shadowlight. Now that you are aware of and have refused him, he should no longer be able to influence or converse with you anymore. The goal now is to quiet that energy. If we succeed in stabilizing it, it will provide a large pool of magic for you to tap into."

"Cool," I said, "How do we do that?"

"That is going to be quite difficult to do," said Change, "We think that the chaos may be related to the pain you have deep inside you, and the turmoil of your feelings. The only way to calm that chaos, is to let go of the pain and hatred your past has bred inside you."

Let go? Forgive them? After what they did? After they betrayed me?

But that was in the past. shouldn't I finally let go? I need to.

My mind swirled between the two options.

"I can't," I whispered.

"What?", asked Twilight, "Why?"

"I really wish I could," I said, "but I can't."

Standing up, I turned towards the door, and slowly walked out of the room.

Looking back over my shoulder, I said, "I guess it's a bad thing that becoming a pony didn't completely alter my mind, because I am never going to let go until every traitor, everyone from Sector Delta who collaborated with the H.L.F, every single bastard who perverted my work, is dead."

Almost immediately after I said that, I tripped over my own hooves and fell flat on the ground.

Jimmy immediately came to help me up, but I shrugged him off as I managed to stand back up.

"Hey, you kno-," Jimmy began.

I took off running down the hall, unwilling to hear him.

I don't know how long I ran down those halls. I don't know how I even managed to keep from falling.

As I ran, I heard voices from people I had spoken to long ago.

"I can't believe you're that stupid."

"You'll never achieve anything with your crazy ideas."

"Yo, wizard man, discover any new spells."

"You will quickly find that in this facility, mistakes are not tolerated."

"The situation has changed, director. The defense council believes that, with so many humans rushing to become ponies, the defense needs of this country have decreased. Our superiors have decided to sell this project's outcome to a paramilitary organization dedicated to preserving humanity. This will provide much needed profit, with little chance of tracing the systems back to us.

Maximum gain, minimum risk."

My legs finally tired of running, and collapsed, causing me to slide face down on the floor for a few feet.

I shakily stood up and looked around, realizing that I had no idea where I was.

I carefully walked over to a wall, sat down on my hindquarters, and began to cry.

What was wrong with me? I had decided to become a pony in order to let go of that hatred. I knew I couldn't do it alone. I had hoped the ponification would take the burden from me. I wanted to let go, but every time somebody or somepony mentioned the idea, my heart turned to stone and I refused to let go.

Now everypony hated me. Thought I was heartless. I had messed up again.

"Hey, are you okay?" a voice asked, cutting through the darkness in my mind.

"Huh?" I said, looking up through tear-stained eyes.

Looking down at me was Rainbowdash, a concerned look on her face.

"Hey, don't cry," she said, "What's going on?"

"My entire world is breaking apart," I confessed.

"I don't think I've met you yet," said Rainbowdash, "My name is Rainbowdash, what's yours?"

How has she not met me yet? Oh, right, the transformation. Wait, is it a good idea to tell her who I am?

I quickly studied her face, while doing my best to make sure she didn't notice it.

A few years ago, I had realized that I was able to notice patterns in someone's facial expression and voice.

These patterns, would correspond to that person's personality.

With a great deal of effort, I had manage to use similarities in those patterns to predict personalities with a fairly high level of accuracy. I had received much practice with this skill while in Sector Delta, and had evolved it to the point where I could tell if they were likely to perform a certain action.

I had never tried this on a pony before, but looking at Rainbow dash, I realized that the patterns were still there.

Right now, every single pattern was indicating that she would definitely laugh if I told her who I was, and laughter was the last thing I needed right now.

So that was out of the question. I needed another name.

"My name's Starlight," I said.

"That's a very pretty name," said Rainbow.

I blushed, "Thank you," I whispered.

"So why's a beautiful mare like you, sitting out here and crying?" asked Rainbow

Beautiful? Whoa, hold on, is she...?

"Shadowlight!" I heard Twilight call out, "There you are!"

Twilight trotted over to where we were.

"Shadowlight?" asked, Rainbowdash, confused, "I thought your name was Starlight."

I tried to reply, but all I managed was to let out a squeak.

"Who is this pony?" Rainbow asked Twilight.

"This is Jones," said Twilight, "He chose Shadowlight as his pony name."

"But why is he a mare?" asked Rainbow.

"It turns out that only mares can bear the Elements of Harmony," said Twilight.

Wait, what?

"If Shadowlight was a normal pony, he would have become female upon receiving an element." said Twilight, "However, since he received it while becoming a pony, he was able to stay a stallion, but any form that he tries to take using his powers, will always end up female."

"So, Shadowlight's powers have him turning into a mare?" asked Rainbow.

Twilight nodded.

"Oh, please don't laugh," I mentally begged Rainbowdash.

"Huh. Well, I can't deny that he makes a cute pegasus," said Rainbow, "Well I gotta fly, see ya Shadowlight, see ya Twilight." Rainbowdash waved goodbye and flew away down the hall."

What just happened? Did she just-? Was this the same pony who I had just analyzed a few minutes ago?

"Why did you say your name was Starlight?" asked Twilight, sitting down next to me.

"Well, Shadowlight doesn't really sound like a mare's name, and I didn't want her to find out who I was." I said.

"Why not?" asked Twilight.

"I didn't want her to laugh at me," I said.

"What's so wrong with that? You were really upset earlier when we laughed." said Twilight.

"I hate being laughed at." I said, closing my eyes.

"I can understand that you wouldn't like it, but why do you react so strongly?"

"I've been made fun of so much in my life. I was ridiculed on what could've been the most important day of my life, and everyone kept laughing at me wherever I went. Laughter makes me remember that pain." I said, letting a tear drop from my eye.

"Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry," said Twilight, "But why did you run away?"

"I can't do it Twilight," I said, my tears flowing freely again, "I want to let go. I need to let go. But I can't!"

Twilight put her foreleg around me, and I buried my head inside her mane.

"I've held onto this hatred, this pain for so long," I said, "It's a wound on my soul that's eating me up inside. But whenever someone suggests letting go, it's like the wound is opened up again. All this hatred, this anger wells up inside me, and I just want revenge. It's something I hate, and want to get rid of, but at the same time, it's a part of who I am."

"It's okay, I understand," whispered Twilight, stroking the back of my head with a hoof.

"No you don't," I said, closing my eyes and sighing as I let the sweet smell of her mane overtake me.

"That's one of the things that makes ponies very lucky." I said, " In Equestria, you don't have to deal with all the anger, hate, and betrayal that humanity has to. So, as much as you want to, you couldn't understand. You grew up in peace and harmony. I grew up in chaos and destruction."

Twilight turned her head in my direction, causing me to lift my head from her mane and look into her eyes.

Such soft, kind, caring eyes.

"I'd like to though," she said, before nuzzling me in the neck.

Surprised by this gesture of affection, I hesitantly nuzzled her back.

Does she really like me?

I mean, I really do like her, but why choose me?

I'm just some newfoal stallion.

Heck, I'm only half a stallion, I can turn into a mare. I am a mare right now.

Does she like mares?

Reading her face, I came to an interesting realization.

"She doesn't care." I thought, "It's the same pony on the inside, no matter what the covering."

She likes me for, well, me?

That's the most...nobody's ever... I think...

Holy crap, I love her.

But what if she doesn't feel the same.

Just likes, not loves me.

I can't say anything, There's no way I could handle rejection. Not now.

"I, I don't know what to say." I stammered.

"It's okay. You don't need to say anything," said Twilight, lightly kissing me on the nose.

_Sproing_

I looked at my side, and saw, much to my surprise, that my wings had popped open.

I tried to close them, but I didn't know which muscles to pull, and they seemed extremely stiff.

I looked over to Twilight, and saw that she was hiding a smile behind a hoof.

"What's going on with my wings?" I asked her.

"Well, I'm not a pegasus," she said, "so I'm not fully sure, but it seems you are experiencing a biological reaction, pegasi have to physical attraction.

What did she mean by...oh. OH!

My whole face felt like it was on fire.

"Wow," said Twilight, "I've never seen a pony blush that much."

How do I get out of this situation. Oh, right. My abilities.

I gritted my teeth and focused on being a unicorn.

If felt the familiar pain, in my sides and forehead as my wings receded and my horn grew.

However, the pain was not as intense this time and did not spread to the rest of my body.

When the pain died down I took a few seconds to catch my breath.

"That's better," I said.

"Well I guess that's one way to get rid of that," she said, standing up, "Now I think we should go make sure those two boyshaven't gotten into any trouble back at the room."

I stood up and began to follow her back towards my room.

After half a minute of walking, I noticed something.

"Hey," I said, "I think I'm getting the hang of walking now."

"That's great," said Twilight, "Although I did think it was kinda cute when you kept falling over."

I blushed again.

Darn it, why is everypony here making me blush?

I'm not sure how long we were walking for before we bumped into somepony else.

I mean I literally bumped into her, since I was looking around and not paying attention to where I was going.

"How rude! Will you please watch where you're going," I heard a new voice say.

I looked in front of me and saw a white unicorn with a curled purple mane and a three gem cutie mark looking crossly at me.

For some reason the words "White marshmallow pony," popped into my mind.

"Oh, Twilight, darling, wherever have you been?" she asked.

"Oh, hello Rarity," Twilight replied, "I was just helping sha- Starlight here back to her room."

"Oh, well, It's a pleasure to meet you Starlight," said Rarity, extending a hoof, which I carefully shook, making sure not to lose my balance.

She suddenly gasped, saying "Oh my gosh, I love your mane! You simply must let me make something to accent those beautiful stars!"

"Stars? My mane doesn't-"

"Actually It does," interrupted Twilight, "I just thought you already noticed, so I didn't say anything."

"I have an idea for this amazing little tiara to accent your mane which would make you look simply divine!" said Rarity, pulling at my hoof, "You simply must come with me."

I looked to Twilight for help, but she simply smiled, and motioned me to go with Rarity.

I reluctantly complied, and let Rarity lead me to a room that appeared to be a small boutique of sorts.

I barely had enough time to look around, before I was pushed onto a platform, and held in place by magic as Rarity began to make countless measurements of my body.

"I thought you said you were going to just make a tiara," I said, confused what all the measurements were for.

"Of course dear, but I want to know your size if you come back later to order a dress or something else." replied Rarity.

A dress. That definitely wasn't going to happen.

"I'm not really big on outfits," I said, "In fact, I'm not really sure why I listened to Twilight and let myself be taken here in the first place. Oh, speaking of which, how much is that that, tiara going to cost. Because I don't have any equestrian, what were they called again? Bolts? Bobs?"

"Bits," said Rarity, "and you don't need to pay me for this." She finished her measurements, and began to look through a large chest that was sitting in a corner. "Ah, here it is," she said, levitating out a small tiara for me to see.

The tiara itself was made of silver, and had small blue sapphires studded along it's rim, with a larger one, embedded in the front in the shape of a star.

"There we go," said Rarity, placing the tiara on my forehead, it fitting comfortably around my horn and between my ears.

"You look simply fabulous," she said, levitating a mirror over so I could see myself. The tiara was kinda like an inverse lf my mane, which was now a dark blue and shined with silver specks, definitely looking like a starfield. The sapphires sparkled whenever I moved.

"Yeah, it is kinda nice," I said.

"Wonderful, now to try some outfits," she said.

_Oh, crap!_

I bolted for the door, but Rarity caught me in her magic and was dragging me back towards where she was standing next to a pile of clothes.

I tried to grab onto something, but the problem with hooves is, you can't.

Rarity levitated the tiara from my head and placed it on a table, before beginning her work.

It must have been 6 or seven outfits and failed escape attempts later, when I decided I was not going to be the nice pony anymore.

As she was squeezing me into a tiny saddle, I decided I had enough.

Using my handy dandy Sector Delta combat knowledge, I shifted my weight, and kicked a hoof underneath Rarity in such a way that she fell over onto her back.

I then quickly used my mouth to hog tie her legs with a piece of fabric.

I bolted out of the room, and raced down the halls of the bureau.

After a few turns, I realized that the saddle she squeezed me into was making it hard to breath.

I stopped for a moment, to try to get it off.

_Damn it, how do you undo knots with nothing but your mouth?_

"Starlight! Where are you?" I heard Rarity's voice echo down the hallway.

Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap!

I need this thing off now!

I heard a strange crackling sound, and saw a bolt of lightning leap from my horn to one of the knots. The affected knot sent out a pulse of energy along the fabric, before turning gray and crumbling into dust. The pulse caused the other knots to also crumble away, the saddle sliding off of me, once the last one had disappeared.

Hell yeah! Magic is awesome! Now if only I could control it.

"Oh crap. Running time now." I thought as I heard the clop of Rarity's hooves.

I continued running down the hallway, and emerged in a room, at the end of which was a set of double doors.

I was halfway across the room, when I heard Rarity exclaim, "Wait! Starlight, Stop!"

Looking back, I saw that she was standing at the end of the room.

"No, No more!" I yelled, as I ran through the doors, "Just, Leave, Me, Alone!"

I closed my eyes and continued running.

It took me a few seconds before I realized that I wasn't running on the tile floor of the bureau anymore, but instead on grass.

I quickly slowed to a stop, and opened my eyes to find myself about 2 feet from the edge of the shield, the crowd on the other side eagerly attempting to break through it and grab me.

"Starlight, come back!" I heard Twilight yell.

I looked back and saw Twilight, Rarity, and Jimmy standing in the bureau's doorway.

"No!" I yelled back, "So far, I've been put through excruciating pain, fallen into a coma, been experimented on, turned into a girl twice, been laughed at, and been put into countless dresses. I haven't even had a chance to eat anything yet! So far, being a pony is terrible! I'd rather walk into this crowd and be torn apart than go back!"

The crowd of protesters roared, drowning out whatever it was Twilight was saying.

I tried to hear her, but the noise was so so loud. It feeled like it was penetrating my skull and building up as pressure..

I tried calling out for them to stop, but my voice was drowned out.

"Stop, please stop," I said, the pressure in my head becoming too much to bear, "Everyone, just STOP!"

Suddenly, the pressure disappeared and everything became deathly quiet.

Carefully opening my eyes, I first noticed that my horn was glowing.

_So, did I get a magic earmuff spell?_

I turned to Twilight to ask her what I was doing, and saw her staring at me, mouth open as if to say something.

Hey Twilight," I said.

No response.

"Umm, Twilight, are you okay?"

She didn't move.

I looked around and saw that Rarity, Jimmy, and the entire crowd of HLF protesters were also frozen.

I gulped, "This is not good."


	9. Odd one Out reloaded (Notice)

I'm back, and Odd One Out is getting a complete makeover!

You should go back and check the first chapter, to see the greatly expanded story.

I'm going to delete the old chapters and update them as soon as I can, but I currently have finals, so I'm a bit busy.

More info coming in a little bit.


End file.
